New game releases.
Black Future ’88 is Now Available on Steam and is 10% off!*
Black Future ’88 is a Synth-Punk roguelike 2D action Shooter. Vertically climb an always evolving procedural tower to reach the top and kill its insane owner…before your heart explodes. Shoot, slash, dash and upgrade yourself to survive the endless waves of Homicidal AI, Traps & Colossal Wardens.
*Offer ends November 28 at 10AM Pacific Time
Half-Life: Alyx is Now Available for Pre-Purchase on Steam and is 10% off!*
Valve’s return to the award-winning series in virtual reality takes place between the events of Half-Life and Half-Life 2. Alyx Vance and her father Eli mount an early resistance to the Combine’s brutal occupation of Earth.
As Alyx, players battle to save the future of humanity: engaging in visceral combat, solving puzzles, and exploring a world decimated by a mysterious alien race. VR was built for the kind of gameplay that sits at the heart of Half-Life.
*Offer ends when game is released.
Only a few months after the massive Blender 2.80 release, the Blender foundation have just released Blender 2.81. Blender is an open source 3D application that is gaining a ton of traction in both film and games media. The 2.81 release brings several new features including several quality of life improvements such as outliner and file dialog modernization as well as excellent new features like vastly improved sculpting and grease pencil brushes.
Highlight features of interest for game developers in this release include:
You can learn more about the release in the Blender 2.81 release notes available here. Additionally CGCookie have put together a nice introduction to new features in this article. Blender 2.81 is available for download here.
If you want to see Blender 2.81 in action, including the new Poly Build, sculpting tools, file dialog, outliner and more be sure to check out the video[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twWUdjdm-a8&w=853&h=480] below.
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21 Nov 2019
If you’re into digital board games, chances are you’re a fan of Nomad Games. They don’t always get it right, but generally they’re a decent company who know their way around a table-top game and know how to bring it to digital platforms, mobile or otherwise.
Since 2017 they’ve been in a publishing partnership with Asmodee Digital, who’ve also been aggressively active in the digital board games space. It seems that collaboration is now at an end, however, as Nomad yesterday announced they were flying solo once more.
There’s a press release where Asmodee and Nomad say nice things about each other, as you do, but it looks like Nomad’s being expanding their publishing department on their side. Despite still having the partnership with Asmodee Digital at the time, Nomad self-published their digital adaptation of Mystic Vale. I suspect it’s at a point where neither side need each other as much as what makes a deal like this worth it, although hopefully they’ve partnered on as good terms as is suggested.
What does that mean for you guys? Probably not much. The partnership actually ended on November 14th, it seems, so you’ll likely notice that Nomad Games will be listed again for certain games. The full breakdown as has been shared so far is as follows…
Nomad Digital will be self-publishing:
Asmodee Digital will continue to publish Love Letter. This might mean that Nomad will prioritise support of the games their publishing themselves, so I doubt Love Letter will get more than the most necessary of bug-fixes. I seem to remember there was some kerfuffle over using an Asmodee account to unlock certain things in Talisman. I imagine that’ll no longer be the case (if it even still was, I never checked).
Obviously any future Nomad-developed games will also be published by Nomad, bar any further publishing agreements.
Say what you will about Apple Arcade, one of its definite drawbacks is the difficulty in navigating the home page and simply locating the good games on the platform. Cursed with low discoverability and a burgeoning catalogue that everyone (including us) says you can traipse through at random and find great games, Apple Arcade is being continually subjected to Pocket Tactics’ cruel whims. This is Apple Arcade Roulette #3, because jamais deux sans trois. ‘Never twice without a third’. If there’s a consistent trend with these games it is that they easily fit themselves into genre conventions but then proceed to tweak or even subvert expectations.
If you want more Apple Arcade goodness, you can read the other games we’ve reviewed so (Arcade Roulette #1, Arcade Roulette #2), as well as check out our current list of favourite Apple Arcade Games. For reference, we’ve also put together a complete list of Apple Arcade games available as well.
A girl wanders through her cursed and scattered memories, scavenging apples and other supplies to farm her way into a charmed life. It’s leisurely-paced with the ‘farming’ scheme playing out like something halfway between Stardew Valley and Cookie Clicker. Plenty of timers, conversation rates and production chains. Apples become coins which are tendered for building materials, giving further gizmos and whatsits to prolong the cycle.
The proper chain of unlocks and actions is a little obscure, unfortunately. The creepy-cute aesthetic and silent movie storytelling set it apart from other genre entries. The emotional content is confusing and ambiguous, but the gameplay is linear and purely points-driven. The tone is silent but gothic: not morbid or scary but treading the fine line between melancholy and debilitating sorrow. It’s a very good game to play whilst alone because to explore another’s solitude is a mind-expanding endeavour, and it is this slow-burning curiosity which makes Nightmare Farm a rewarding, if weird, play.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6z5HS3c3_Wc?controls=0]
Guildlings is a rad game positioned somewhat at odds with the Arcade model. It’s billed as an episodic adventure and is quite promising but still just getting started. Right now it’s a slickly rendered, sweetly told game about youths getting up to magical mischief. Levity, insight and a low-key vibe of deep emotional support make this a wholesome game. I can’t stress enough how impressive it is that Guildlings instantly evokes long-standing relationships and nails a fresh tone without being too trying.
Managing your party members’ moods to solve puzzles and clear battles is a unique way to blend visual novel and RPG elements. Right now the storytelling and art direction are stronger pluses than the RPG and turn-based battles, but hopefully the later stages will grow more complex. The first episode is a decent chunk of content and will take you a handful of hours to complete. Unfortunately, with something this promising it would be nice to play it semi-regularly. I hope it updates soon.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfQeNXFkwhc?controls=0]
Theoretically this should have been most up my alley, given it’s a story-based tactical card-battler. I love this type of game and will champion any and all worthy entries, but this one is just a little weird. It has grid-based combat, a dynamic action-point turn system, and a mixture of equipment- and deck-building aspects. Stack the laudable goals of fleshing out four different main characters, an original fantasy setting and full campaign and you have an insanely ambitious game.
It rips itself apart trying to excel on too many fronts, unfortunately. The writing is a strange mixture of styles and tones, the art has more attention paid to gear and weaponry than the oddly proportioned faces, and the actual gameplay is too muddled. The card design is decent and the party system has distinct class roles for each character, but strangely enough this beast of a game is less than the sum of its parts.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxMZGrYYNPk?controls=0]
Twin-stick shooter about a gig sucking up ghosts to escape a truly ghoulish fate. (Obligatory Ghostbusters and Luigi’s Mansion nods). Management-mission schtick mixes well with the short missions, which are almost like action set pieces, what with the various character, item and level quirks. The game rewards reflexes, sure, but also some planning. A little kitchen-sink in terms of the appeal. The art and sound design feel like misplaced cartoons. It has really clean storytelling and the action bits are pure adrenaline, so if you even have the slightest interest I would say jump right in. Effortless control scheme, level design and laid-back lore-dumps mean this is a no-brainer recommendations.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLYb5meEhWY?controls=0]
A dearie and rather inventive title, but its intended audience is rather narrow. Still, it manages to turn the quirks and conventions of that supreme omnishambles, the English language, into decent entertainment. The raw material is drawn from classic lit in the public domain a little too faithfully, so the game can be ‘spoilt’ by over-reliance on familiarity with the source texts. Correct answers and patterns can be deduced from a limited context or logical rules, of course, but also by invoking memory of the plot or big picture. By gamifying the act of reading, it layers a sort of self-consciousness about an activity that is traditionally more free-form and undirected.
To max out a score, one must attend to theme. This mixed approach is actually rather nifty because it’s how learning and language acquisition work in other cases. As a grammar and reverse-mad libs type puzzle it’s quite good but leans a little too heavily on nostalgia. It is clearly a labor of love, and rather a fine one at that. The score and persistent in-game currency are both measured in ink, which is later used to unlock other books.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjc7EnyjFNE?controls=0]
So, based on these latest five games, I would say the general quality of Apple Arcade still holds. The safest bet for anyone wandering into the service is to just try whatever types of games are usually their favorites. These releases are clearly striving to cater to as wide an audience as possible while still somehow satisfying the more discerning hobbyist. It’s an impossible, paradoxical goal. Nevertheless the effort and results thus far have been a pleasant surprise. We’ll see what the next spin of the wheel brings.
20 Nov 2019
I’ll be honest, it’s a bit of a slow week here at PT towers, so I’m in one of my ‘let’s just throw stuff out there and see what happens’ moods. Feral Interactive just put out another tweet regarding Company of Heroes’ iPad port, reiterating that the game will still be releasing this year:
As you’ll note, the tweet was actually about how the tactical map has been enhanced, but we’re more concerned about their release promises. Let’s break it down, because we can:
What this tells us is that it’s unreasonably close to Christmas and I haven’t even started my Christmas shopping yet. Also, that we can probably expect Company of Heroes iPad to launch within the next couple of weeks, assuming they plan to stick to their promise.
Mobile gaming is in a bit of a weird place right now so there is a sense that you can throw the rulebook out the window, but generally game companies want to avoid releasing games too close to Christmas, or at least over Christmas. That didn’t stop Aspyr dropping Civilization 6 on iPad very late in the year, mind. We had to review after we came back in January. It really depends how much one cares about being featured on ‘Best of 2019’ lists etc.
Crap, that reminds me. I’ve got to start working on that as well. What’s come out this year, again?
20 Nov 2019
I’m still plugging away at Hearthstone Battlegrounds, even though it makes me despair more than any other Auto Chess game has done previously. I like it, but I also kind of hate it… hopefully someone else will take what Blizzard has done with Battlegrounds and make something that’s not completely bonkers, than I can free myself from this Auto Chess hell I’ve found myself in.
Meanwhile, Blizzard has added four new heroes into the mix, while retiring launch heroes King Mukla, Giantfin, Millificent Manastorm and Lich Baz’hial.
Giantfin was the first Heroes I ever tried when playing Battlegrounds. Personally I thought he could work if Murlocs as a tribe were given a boost. Along with King Mukla and Millificent Manastorm, you’re forced down a specific build (Murlocs, Beasts or Mechs), which I guess is a gamble if someone else is also buying up those card types. Still, they’ve left the Demon buffing Lord Jarraxus in the mix so it’s hard to tell if Blizzard are against tribe-specific heroes or not. Maybe they just wanted to give Demons an advantage?
Here are the details on the new heroes joining the game:
Hero Power: Stay Frosty (Passive)
Cost: 0
Ability: At the end of your turn, Frozen minions get +1/+1
This is an interesting ability, but it creates an odd tempo because you essentially have to buy the card you want AFTER you freeze it for a turn. Not only that, once you’ve bought it there’s no way to freeze the minion again so we’re talking about a minor, one-off stat boost. I wonder if it heralds a future update where ‘Freezing’ becomes a minion ability, and not just something you do in the Tavern. They’ll need to be something, because with the stat-inflated mess the game is currently a simple 1/1 boost won’t be able to keep up with the other abilities.
Hero Power: Lead Explorer (Passive)
Cost: 0
Ability: When you upgrade Bob’s Tavern get a ‘Recruitment Map’.
I don’t really understand this ability myself – will need to test Elise out to see where it’s value is. The Recruitment Map will be a bonus card added to your hand, but it costs three cold to play. It allows you to recruit a minion from your current tavern tier after upgrading it at Bob’s Tavern. Is this a scry/search ability? Or is better or worse than Discover? I guess we’ll find out.
Hero Power: Battle Brand (Passive)
Cost: 0
Ability: After you play a Battlecry minion, give a random friendly minion +1/+1
Battlecry as a keyword is pretty ubiquitous across the card-pool, and focusing on them with Brann means you get an added incentive for using them. Plus, you can then sell them on if you want, although going by the wording on paper, the Battlecry minion you just played may end up getting the +1/+1. Brann’s ability is better than Sindragosa’s from where I’m sitting, as you can in theory boost a minion more than once (although you have no control).
Hero Power: Power Up!
Cost: 1
Ability: Give a random friendly minion +1/+1. After you sell a minion, refresh this.
I’m not sure how meta selling lots of minions is in Battlegrounds at the moment, especially because of the fixed economy around buying/selling. Still being able to use this ability more than once a turn is not to be sniffed at, and could be good for giving your lync-pin minion an early boost while you’re still sorting your synergies out. Again, the ‘random’ elements makes it less reliable, however, and so far I’ve not seen a strategy that allows for boards below 5 minions.
New heroes aren’t the only things that are coming in the new update – there’s plenty of balance changes and tweaks coming as well, which are detailed in the full patch announcement.
The next update will be dropping in December. Generally, Blizzard wants to look at tweaking and balancing the existing card pool, as well as rotating heroes in and out. Two new minions are also on their way, although not sure if they’ll make the next update or not.
How are you finding Battlegrounds so far? What do you make of the new heroes? Let us know in the comments!
There is another Humble Bundle of interest to game developers, this one is the Humble Music and Sound Effects for Games, Films, and Content Creators Bundle. It is a collection of audio resources including music packs, special FX and voice overs. As always the bundles are organized into pricing tiers, where if you buy a higher dollar value tier, you get all of the lower value tiers below it.
The tiers of this bundle are:
1$
13$
25$
As with all Humble Bundles, you get to decide how your money is allocated, between the publisher, Humble, charity, or if you so choose (and thanks a ton if you do!) to support GameFromScratch using this link. You can learn more about the bundle in the video below. The license terms of the bundle are available here.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUWPDAs5BKI&w=853&h=480]
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© 2019 Valve Corporation. All rights reserved. All trademarks are property of their respective owners in the US and other countries.
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© 2019 Valve Corporation. All rights reserved. All trademarks are property of their respective owners in the US and other countries.
View mobile website
